Give me the hope to run our of steam
by punkgoldfish
Summary: celery sticks and mustard, dad, football, divorce, adderall,    Each chapter is a character in the group talking to the others about their issues. Some are obvious, Adderall, and others are based off little one sentences I've heard mentioned and built upo


I don't own Community, the characters or any rights to it.

These are short stories, each chapter is a character in the group talking to the others about their issues. Some are obvious, Adderall, and others are based off little one sentences I've heard mentioned and built upon. Enjoy.

**ANNIE**

"What was it like?" Abed asked, we all knew he would and we all wanted him too.  
>It made sense for him to. Take Health and Human Development as a group, do a unit in addictions and mental illness, get a diorama to do on prescription drug addicts, ask Annie what it was like to be <em>Little Annie Adderall<em>. I couldn't help but snicker a little at the scene before me. A, as Abed insists on calling us, Rag-tag-bunch of misfits all staring with curiosity, empathy and shame in their eyes at wanting to get a doe eyed straight laced girl to divulge her painful memories over glitter glue and cardboard…and the dragon monster or final stage of human evolution that Troy and Pierce felt needed to be re-visited and included.

We all had wondered about asking , wondered what it was like, when Troy explained it briefly he had made it seem comical and we all liked to pretend it was, but we all knew it couldn't have been. Of course we all had wondered if she was using again, those moments when she seemed extra driven for extended amounts of time, when her hands shook, when she looked frightened at empty spaces and when she muttered 'focus, focus, focus' to herself. But we had ourselves convinced Annie was far too grounded for a relapse. Relapses didn't happen to the Annie's of the world, if there was another 21 year old who wore cardigans, had an I like butter flies voice, was devoted to anything she did and remained sincere and un-spoilt by the world. 

"Annie," Abed began again gently, but never bothered to finish the sentence, though I guessed how it ended, when he handed her a tissue. He got it, he knew to preserve some of her dignity by not openly asking if she wanted a tissue, small things, that's how Abed worked and that's why he worked with everyone, he got them.  
>Britta cleared her throat, causing Annie to raise her head. "You know Annie, think of this like a judgment free zone. None of us are perfect, we've all had our dark days, but you know we worry about you. And we don't want you to feel like you can't talk to us about this. You live in a free country, you have the right to show your emotions without being stoned-" There was a collective group groan, but once again Britta's innate need to take care of others combined with her compulsive outrage at everything marched on. "What I'm trying to say is, we want to help." <p>

"And we're curious, you know we've always been curious but with the circumstances provided it seems like the perfect opportunity to ask. Though, if our lives were told from first person then that would have been in a monologue at the start, in more affectionate, nostalgic and worried detail shortly after my question." Abed added, in his mechanical pencil way.

"Annie, Abed means that we're curious for your wellbeing. When my boys are not telling me something I find a brownie helps them relax…here." Shirley pulled her brownie plate from her bag.

I snorted again; we had agreed to pull an all-nighter at Troy and Abed's new APPPARTMENT! Oh, crap now I'm singing it in my head! Of course Shirley had baked for the occasion.  
>Annie picked at the brownie meekly and cleared her throat. She threw a glance to me and then Troy, who had his head down fiddling with his hands. Her head snapped down again immediately, and then Pierce put his hand on her shoulder. Everybody prepared to tell him now was not the time to be creepy.<br>"You're my favorite, Princess." He whispered, just loud enough for us all to hear and we noticed Annie briefly touch a necklace with a tiny tiara pendant.

"I've never, I mean in rehab sure but even then I tried to not dwell on it, focus on kicking the Adderall. I wouldn't know how-"  
>"How about how you got them in the first place?" I offered, the first time I spoke.<br>"Yes, that seems appropriate. After all, that was the beginning." There she was technical and thoughtful Annie. 

_FLASHBACK  
><em> 

"Hey there Kiddo." Annie turned, her long brown hair whipped behind her, Alan Richardson, her mother's new boyfriend stood casually in the hall way. "What are you up to?"

"Extra credit." Annie stifled a yawn, and Alan strolled towards her desk.

"Ulysses? Yikes! That's advanced English Literature yeah?"  
>Annie nodded before turning back to her paper. "Just how much extra is this credit kiddo?" He leafed through the large pile of papers of her desk and Annie hissed in pain and pressed her finger and thumb to forehead. "Wow there kiddo, what's wrong?"<p>

"Stress headache, I think. I got my first one when I was four, I'll just take an aspirin." She popped the pill which she had retrieved from the full bottle in her desk draw and Alan's eyes lingered over the empty bottle on her desk draw.

"Slow down there." He murmured

"It's fine, they help me get rid of the pain so I can focus"

"They get rid of pain. They will not help you focus, Acetylsalicylic acid is a depressant, you become sleepy so you push yourself more so you get more pain so you take another aspirin and you become sleepy."

"Oh, are you sure? Because I think-"

"What sort of pain is it? Stabbing?"

"Mhmmm, sharp right in the middle of my forehead" Annie pressed her thumb in the center and Alan pushed down.

"I could prescribe you Adderall, it's a focus drug and relives you of stress headaches. You'll become more alert, and more motivated."

"I think I'd like that."

_END FLASHBACK_

"So that's how I got my hands on them. At first I'd still take aspirin with them but when I was devouring Shakespeare by night, three essays a day and chapters upon chapters of calculus Adderall was all I needed. I didn't need sleep I needed Adderall, I didn't get hungry when I took Adderall, I didn't care when about how much everyone hated me because Adderall made it go away. I needed Adderall to be better than Annie."

Britta put her hand on Annie's, Shirley hugged her, Pierce's hand hadn't moved the whole story , Abed and I moved either dies of her shoulder but Troy still had his head down.

"Tell them." His voice was crackly from not having spoken in a while and Annie whipped her head up. "Tell them about that day, about your breakdown." His eyes didn't move from hers. "Tell them about you lying there on the ground, bleeding."

"Troy, it's okay."

"I'm sorry Annie."

Abed frowned, this was a plot twist he wasn't expecting. He had assumed Troy was maybe a little more mad at her than the rest of us for getting hooked on narcotics because he' d known her the longest, he had known how bright her future was. He wasn't mad at her. 

_FLASHBACK_

.Annie's early, as usual. She figured out that if she got to school early she'd avoid the crossing guard who lured her into traffic and by extension the traffic of students trying to hit her. Annie took her seat in the back corner and placed out her things. Backpack slung over chair, planner and pen neatly in the middle, miniature water bottle placed at the right hand corner, cell phone at the left and Adderall, in her hand concealed under the desk. She counts out the pills.

" One for each hour of the school day, six in a nice little neat row and one by one down they go" She sung to herself, snickering at her muttered childish song.

Annie opens her diary to the large month calendar at the start of each month, with a few lines per date. Flick through it and the individual date pages have homework and exercise schedules; the large diary has odd little lines. Each day there is a coupe more, crossed off in intervals of five. Each line is the same length and is always marked in her special diary pen; a purple one with a gel grip.

It's 8:30. This may have seemed like a while to out stationary on a desk, but she takes great time and care to lay out her possessions, it distracts her from being lonely.

"Let's see, one before breakfast and one after, oh and that one at midnight to nail the conclusion." She marks in seven and frowns, that can't be right, she doesn't feel focused enough to have had seven. 

"One more" she mutters and watches the clock tick over a minute.  
>"One more" she mutters and watches the clock tick over a minute.<br>"One more" she mutters and watches the clock tick over a minute.  
>"Two more" she mutters and watches the clock tick over a minute.<p>

By 8:55 people have started filing in and Annie has felt her vision become blurry. She shakes her head, blurry is not focused, and she needs another. She glances up at the clock, 9:10? No! She's lost fifteen minutes that is not focused, she needs another. Her teacher calls her name three times before she answers, she needs another. By the daily announcements she hands shake.  
>"Focus, focus, focus" she mutters, Troy looks over at her.<p>

"Hey, can I have one of your tic tacs?" He asks. He doesn't know her name. She doesn't respond and takes another.

Wait, how many is that? She looks down at her markings, 47. How many in a bottle? 50. Her breath has become shallow now and there's no noise of her classmates. Wait. No noise? Faded mumbling, static, buzzing. Buzzing? She snaps her head up to look at her home room teacher. Lifeless, cold, steel. Grinning at her with an old automatic smile with nothing behind it. It mumbles and buzzes out statically, "Annie?" The robot becomes blurry but she knows it's there, the metallic outlines. Wait. Outlines? More. Rusted, clunky, automatic noises of steel lifeless necks turning. Not classmates, robots. All of them. Old automatic smiles with nothing behind; them looking at her. Laughing. Moving towards her in rusted clunky noises. Metallic throaty whispers.

"What the fuck is she doing? She's like shaking, does she have rabbis?"  
>"I think she's tripping"<br>"Look at her it's that bottle in her hand, what is it?"  
>"Adderall, the label says Adderall."<br>'Little Annie Adderall."  
>"Little Annie Adderall"<br>"Little Annie Adderall" 

"NO!" She gathers up her things, roughly slamming them into her back pack, running away from the steel, the cold cruel steel. But she can hear their metallic clunky footsteps echo behind her.  
>"Annie!" An older rustier one calls, the one that was her homeroom teacher.<br>"Little Annie Adderall" The more metallic ones call, the ones that were her classmates.  
>She locks herself in the bathroom.<p>

Her hands are shaking at the sink, she undoes the cap shaking the three left in her hand and swallows them without water. A few moments later she doesn't remember them going down at all. And she hears "Little Annie Adderall ", she looks up and it's her. But it's not her in the mirror.

Robot Annie, laughing, with dead eyes and an old automatic smile with nothing behind it snickering. She screams and smashes the mirror and her hand bleeds oil. The shattered reflection is still metallic. She grabs a fistful of her once brown long hair, now wires, and sliver wires dangling with copper hanging out of the ends. Scissors. She grabs the out of her pencil case and cuts chunks, trying to get rid of her robot self. It laughs at her. She rips at the flesh with the scissors and only draws oil. She needs to draw blood to be human, she yanks and hair claws and eyes, she needs to get away from her reflection.

She runs out the bathroom, screaming.  
>"Everyone's' a robot!" And there's a vulnerability to her voice, it's broken it's begging for help for someone to side with her. But all there is behind her is metallic whispers.<p>

"Did you see her?"  
>"There are chunks of her hair gone, and cuts ALL OVER HER! Deep ones."<br>"The bathroom has got blood everywhere."  
>"Freak."<br>"Junkie"  
>"Little Annie Adderall"<p>

But she runs faster and she screams to the door, but it's not open. But she runs through it anyway because she can't be hurt, she can't slow down she needs more Adderall.  
>"Everyone's a robot." And she shatters the glass and collapses on the ground.<p>

At Riverside high a young brunette, lays on the ground. Her stockings, dress, cardigan and show ripped. There's glass in her sides and cuts all of her face. There's glass in her hair and on her arms. There are chunks of her hair gone and other fresh cuts that couldn't have been made by grass. And she's whispering "Everyone's a robot" quietly, pathetically, softly. Her eyes loom like glass and she's shaking. She lays spread out like she's making a snow angle. A demented child's drawing of crushed glass and blood shine in the morning sun. And everyone looks. The chess club, the debate team, the art students and everyone in between. Just look, and chant.  
>"Little Annie Adderall."<br>Troy Barnes looks he doesn't move to help her. He chants when the ambulance comes. He doesn't help her. 

_END FLASHBACK_

We're all silent, Abed makes no movie references about how she's stronger because of it or comments on the panning shots he would have made. Britta makes no comments on the shameful way marketing hooked a bright young girl on drugs. Shirley makes no comment to Jesus about protecting Annie and cutting up he classmates. Pierce doesn't point out all her class mates were behaving like whichever race he has an issue with this week. Troy doesn't make offhanded comments to butt stuff or voice his clottish thoughts . And me? No Winger speech to bring it home. I've got nothing. Because what can you say to a little girl who went through that and picked herself back up again. We sit in silence for hours, eating pizza and brownies and sprinkling glitter glue pointlessly on over glued globs of glue.

"You never answered me." Abed points out. And he's right, she never told him directly what it was like. "What was it like?"

"Disturbing, horrendous, depressing and sickening…and perturbing. Perturbing because sometimes I wish I still used Adderall. But I could never torment myself with hallucination like that again." We all nod in and she bows her head.

"I don't want to be an addict again." She says in the most frightened voice I've ever heard her use. "I worry sometimes I will be. I don't want to be vulnerable or fragile but when it comes to Adderall I am." And she's not kidding, you can hear it in her voice, in her body language. For the first time ever Annie is slumped over, she looks tiny. She's sobbing. And one by one we hug her, because what else are you supposed to do when the little mermaid looks like she's getting choked by a bike chain and you find out she's the one doing the choking? What else can you do?


End file.
